Scope and Contents

This book appears to be an autobiographical-based experimental novel with a large cast of characters. The protagonist, Jim Arch, appears to be based upon jas h. duke and Ann who is Anna Blume. The Sackner Archive holds two artist books done by her. The end of their romance on the final page parodies the Molly Bloom's speech at the end of James Joyce's Ulysses: Is it all over now? said Ann. Yes said Jim.Yes I think so. Yes I'm certain. Yes.The time period of this novel vacillates between the time that the novel was written to a much earlier time such as the 17th century. The well known characters include Janis Joplin, Spiderman, Daniel Webster, Ben Franklin, Jonathan Swift, Oblomov, and Lord Byron among others. This book is printed in a many divergents layouts. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This novel is printed as a facsimile of the typewritten manuscript with its experimental layouts. From the Publisher: "Double or Nothing" is a concrete novel in which the words become physical materials on the page. Federman gives each of these pages a shape or structure, most often a diagram or picture. The words move, cluster, jostle, and collide in a tour de force full of puns, parodies, and imitations. Within these startling and playful structures Federman develops two characters and two narratives. These stories are simultaneous and not chronological. The first deals with the narrator and his effort to make the book itself; the second, the story the narrator intends to tell, presents a young man's arrival in America. The narrator obsesses over making his narrative to the point of not making it. All of his choices for the story are made and remade. He tallies his accounts and checks his provisions. His questioning and indecision force the reader into another radical sense of...

Scope and Contents This copy is the first edition, first printing of the book. The book was reviewed by Publishers Weekly:What would it sound like if a foreigner wrote a novel in broken English? Foer answers this question to marvelous effect in his inspired though uneven first novel. Much of the book is narrated by Ukrainian student Alex Perchov, whose hilarious and, in their own way, pitch-perfect malapropisms flourish under the influence of a thesaurus. Alex works for his family's travel agency, which caters to Jews who want to explore their ancestral shtetls. Jonathan Safran Foer, the novel's other hero, is such a Jew an American college student looking for the Ukrainian woman who hid his grandfather from the Nazis. He, Alex, Alex's depressive grandfather and his grandfather's "seeing-eye bitch" set out to find the elusive woman. Alex's descriptions of this "very rigid search" and his accompanying letters to Jonathan are interspersed with Jonathan's own mythical history of his...

Scope and Contents This is a tender, sad, briliant story of the inner life of a young boy after the death of his beloved father in the 9/11 tragedy of the Twin towers destruction in New York.From Publishers Weekly: Oskar Schell, hero of this brilliant follow-up to Foer's bestselling Everything Is Illuminated, is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist. Like the second-language narrator of Illuminated, Oskar turns his naïvely precocious vocabulary to the understanding of historical tragedy, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks, a quest that intertwines with the story of his grandparents, whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden. Foer embellishes the narrative with evocative graphics, including photographs, colored highlights and passages of illegibly overwritten text, and takes his unique flair for the poetry of miscommunication to...

Scope and Contents This is a tender, sad, briliant story of the inner life of a young boy after the death of his beloved father in the 9/11 tragedy of the Twin towers destruction in New York.From Publishers Weekly: Oskar Schell, hero of this brilliant follow-up to Foer's bestselling Everything Is Illuminated, is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist. Like the second-language narrator of Illuminated, Oskar turns his naïvely precocious vocabulary to the understanding of historical tragedy, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks, a quest that intertwines with the story of his grandparents, whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden. Foer embellishes the narrative with evocative graphics, including photographs, colored highlights and passages of illegibly overwritten text, and takes his unique flair for the poetry of miscommunication to...

Scope and Contents

Front and back covers were drawn by Allen Ginsberg. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This book is a compendium of Canadian avant garde writing from 1965 to 1985. Margaret Atwood, who contributed an over-view essay of the work produced during those years, collaborated with Bok to organize the selections of experimental fiction by the authors. John Riddell contributed "Pope Leo: El Lope" from Criss-Cross. It is a lipogram using only the letters e, o, l and p. The contribution by bp Nichol is from "Still... a novel that depicts in minute detail the scenography for a potential, but postponed , story... his words provide a kind of textual terrain across which the eye pans like a camera." Steve McCaffery's "Panopticon" is an enigmatic whodunnit...The panopticon symbolizes the maze of words through which the reader must wander, playing the role of invisible spectator." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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According to Kettner, "This is the first (and only) edition, limited to less than 100 copies. Cover a color xerox of a Chris Winkler painting tipped onto very heavy, gold card stock. Text illustrated throughout with Miskowski's "applananoids;" that is, animated figures with an appliance/electrical theme. Print on covers rubber-stamped. Tissue endpapers. A primo xerox publication." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This book was critically reviewed by Marjorie Perloff in Harvard Library Bulletin Vol.3 No.2, 1992, a periodical held by the Sackner Archive. This is the trade edition of the book that was first printed in a limited edition of 70 copies in 1990. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This is a later printing of the book sometime after 1986. The first edition which is identical in layout and also held by the Sackner Archive, was published in only 126 copies. The layout of the text has unusual spacing and a variety of fonts. In one chapter, the spaced words take on a concrete poetic appearance and in another, the spaced letters almost appear like a letter picture. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This is the first edition of the book limited to 100 copies for sale and 26 for distribution by the author. The layout of the text has unusual spacing and a variety of fonts. In one chapter, the spaced words take on a concrete poetic appearance and in another, the spaced letters almost appear like a letter picture. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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It should be noted that Ernest Vincent Wright in the novel "Gadsby" also wrote a novel without the letter 'e' in 1939. This copy is a reprint of the original novel first printed in 1969. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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The text of this book was written by Butor and the etchings made by Qotbi. This deluxe edition includes additional suite of five etchings by Qotbi on Japon paper, each signed and numbered 5/10. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This is the first American edition of the novel originally published by Canongate Publishing in England in 1981. The visionary drawings reproduced in this book were made by Gray. Andrew Crumey WEB 1999 wrote the following. "Alasdair Gray was born on 28 December 1934 in Glasgow, and trained as a painter at the Glasgow School Of Art. He worked as an art teacher, muralist and theatrical scene painter (experiences which are reflected in novels such as "Lanark" and "1982, Janine"), and his illustrations for his own books (as well as his bold use of typography) form a crucial part of their unique appeal. In the early seventies, Gray attended an informal writers' group run by Philip Hobsbaum, along with James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Liz Lochhead, Agnes Owens and others. Work would be photocopied and distributed in advance for the group to discuss and criticise. Gray had already been working on "Lanark" since the fifties, and found Kelman's advice particularly helpful. The novel was finished...